The Problem: Time for a Sea Change

International treaties take years and, even on the outside chance they are ratified as originally conceived, have little guarantee of success. Yet the US Senate now has the power to prove an exception to this maxim of international law. It is time for the US to at long last ratify the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. The issues that the convention would help advance are becoming steadily more critical, from the preservation of fish stocks, to environmental protection, and suppression of growing piracy and lawlessness on the high seas. A functioning treaty would bolster efforts to protect declining oceanic fish stocks, upon which nearly 15% of the world's population depends as a primary source of protein.